


Breathe

by firelakie



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:05:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelakie/pseuds/firelakie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara misses Anders and Helo helps her cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

They needed each other. Oh Gods, did they ever.

She remembers when she first saw him, that day back on Caprica, looking lost and forlorn, scared as she felt. Of course, her fear didn't show. She put that away and instead leaned on her bravado.

_Fresh meat_, she mused, picking him out in the hall of their high school. Wasn't long before he was sprawling on the floor, books and papers scattered, and a bewildered look on his face. She smirked. She continued like this, every chance she got, hitting, punching and just plain annoying him. Her attacks were usually followed by something said to establish he was a pansy.

Sometimes he watched her leave him, sometimes he looked away. All times he felt like ripping her smirking head off.

It wasn't until one day she pantsed him during cross-country practice that he fought back.

On the way to the locker rooms he geared himself up and tacked her. They laugh about this now, because he grunted and gave hyena-like yell as he slammed his body into hers.

"What the frak?" was all she could say. Her eyes fell on him. He had a full grin edging his lines. She found herself smiling soon, too.

From then on they were inseparable. An unspoken understanding began that day.

He was her best friend, if you wanted to call him that. He knew her inside and out, without bothering to ask her questions. He was the only one she felt comfortable with to be herself, whoever she was at the moment. Right then she was lonely girl. Fighter pilot with no rules. And nobody.

"I miss him," she found herself saying, suddenly.

He let go of the heavybag he was spotting for her and sighed. He bit his lip and waited for her to continue.

"Never thought I'd be the one to feel . . . lost." She caught his gaze. "He's gone and I'm just . . . _just_."

It was all too familiar with him, he was there at that very moment. However, he had another pressing job to do as an officer of the colonies. Being lost in the woods and broken was a virtue left for those not defending the fleet against the Cylons.

As quickly as she fell into her sadness, was as quickly as she moved on from it. "C'mon, spot me."

Taking up the heavybag, he stood behind it, bracing himself for her punches. She hit it hard, emitting a satisfied grunt. Then she struck it again and again. She kept striking until she collapsed into a weeping pile on the floor, gasping for air.

"Breathe," he whispered, kneeling.

She hung her head low, wiping at her face with the boxing gloves. Her knuckles throbbed underneath the leather, probably red and swollen from her outburst. All she could do was sob, her chest heaving, face red.

"Breathe," he told her again.

Her sobbing subsided, but the tears remained. They fell in heaps, coursing down her pale face.

"Are you okay?"

She looked up at him and found solace in his reassuring eyes. What she wanted to say to him, she couldn't. What she felt in that moment, she could not express. Her thoughts were an incoherent jumble of emotions and what ifs and should haves intermittently sprinkled with a 'frak' here and there. She didn't have to say that, though. He knew.

An embrace followed the question and she latched onto him as if she'd never get another chance to be so broken in front of anybody. Tears gathered at her chin made his shirt soggy. It was a welcomed feeling, actually, knowing she was releasing some of her frustrations with him instead of taking it out on the CAG. Or the XO, for that matter.

When she pulled away, he began to help her up but they stumbled. She was still unsteady on her feet. Her gloved hands caught his neck. Laughter erupted from the two of them.

Just like when they were kids. Back on Caprica.

For a moment, he reminded her of that _other_ him. The one she lost on that desolate world.

Happening a bit too swiftly, she parted her mouth and pressed her lips to his. Her arm unhooked from his neck, hands cupping his face.

He _was_ him. If only for that moment.

Naught for all the things she could think of could excuse her. Nothing. Her mind rushed back to the time she called out the CAG's name amid coitus with the Vice President. She was embarrassed then, too, but of a different kind.

_You frakked it up, again, Kara. Gods, you can't do anything right_. This time, the voice didn't sound anything like hers.

"Kara?"

She emerged from her revelry, as if having been frozen. "I-I-"

"I know," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"Helo."

He met her worried eyes with his. "Don't worry about it. Let's get you to the infirmary. Check out those hands."


End file.
